March 29, 2018 — Abbott announced the company has initiated the landmark GUIDE-HF clinical trial using the CardioMEMS HF System. The GUIDE-HF trial will study whether the CardioMEMS device can improve survival and quality of life for people living with New York Heart Association (NYHA) Class II - IV heart failure.

The system has already been proven, when managed by a physician, to significantly reduce heart failure hospital admissions and improve the quality of life for people living with NYHA Class III heart failure. Doctors use the NYHA classification system to classify heart failure according to the severity of a person's symptoms.

"Monitoring pulmonary artery pressure with Abbott's CardioMEMS device has already been shown to offer improvements in patient care. We now want to build a stronger body of clinical evidence, with GUIDE-HF, that establishes its role in improving patient survival," said JoAnn Lindenfeld, M.D., primary investigator for the GUIDE-HF trial and director of advanced heart failure at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

The GUIDE-HF trial is designed to build on the clinical experience gained from the CHAMPION trial and aims to provide additional clinical evidence to further expand coverage for this first-of-its-kind technology.

For people living with heart failure, changes in the pressure of blood through the pulmonary artery can indicate worsening heart failure — even before symptoms such as shortness of breath or weight gain are reported. Abbott's CardioMEMS HF System allows physicians to remotely monitor pressure changes before the patient's symptoms progress. This personalized approach allows physicians to more proactively manage a patient's care while reducing the likelihood of hospitalization.

The CardioMEMS HF System features a small pressure-sensing device, no larger than the size of a small paperclip, that is implanted through a minimally invasive procedure, directly into the patient's pulmonary artery. While at home, patients lay on a special pillow to wirelessly take a pressure reading. Data from the sensor is collected through radio frequency to the pillow's antenna and then is sent wirelessly to the patient's doctor. This information can then be used by physicians to proactively adjust medications and treatment plans, if needed.

A key slide from Elnabawi's presentation, showing cardiac CT plaque evaluations, showing the impact of psoriasis medication on coronary plaques at baseline and one year of treatment. It shows a reversal of vulnerable plaque development.